Business rules for AIM eligibility
The following rules apply when using the return service.
- The customer must not be part of a group excluded from using AIM, for example partnerships, Maori authorities, super funds and look-through companies.
- The customer must be active.
- The customer must not be a member of an income tax consolidated group.
- The tax year the customer wants to use AIM is not a transitional year, for example they have not changed their balance date in that year.
AIM-capable software requirements
AIM works on a self-certification model. A software system must meet the proposed definition of an AIM-capable accounting system contained in section RC 7B of the Income Tax Act 2007 in order to gain approval from the Commissioner.
Definition in legislation
To meet the definition and be approved as an AIM-capable accounting system, the core software accounting package must have the ability to:
- generate and keep comprehensive financial accounts, including accounting income and expenditure, ledger accounts, trial balances, bank account reconciliations and journals on an on-demand basis, in accordance with good accounting and tax practices
- calculate tax liabilities using tax adjustments in accordance with the technical determination
- for tax adjustments not included in the determinations, ensure they reasonably accurately assess tax liabilities
- recalculate all financial accounts and liabilities retrospectively and produce reports as required by the Commissioner and e-communicate electronically with Inland Revenue and provide the right level of help and assistance to its users.
Client intermediation
The linking and delinking of a client by their tax agent is excluded from the scope of gateway services. This can be done in myIR Secure Online Services.
Year to date calculations
AIM payments are based on a year to date calculation. Software must be able to work out all financial accounts and liabilities retrospectively and produce reports. This allows for errors to be corrected easily.
Working out AIM adjustments
Your software needs to incorporate end of year adjustments throughout the year to more accurately reflect taxable income.
Read our determinations for the minimum adjustments required:
Statements of activity
Software will need to send us information with each payment that shows how it came to this amount. This is a statement of activity and is not treated as an income tax return. Indicative technical schemata for statements of activity are available on GitHub.